Contesting the Shifting Center of World Christianity to Africa: Methodological Reconsiderations

Abstract

This essay contests the regnant narratives that the center of gravity of Christianity is shifting to Africa. First, it is not always clear what theorists mean as to what constitutes the centering of Christianity and what ‘shifting centers’ mean beyond the claims of the demographic, social and cultural history of Christian expansion. Furthermore, the field of world Christianity and the methods for studying it continue to evolve, pointing more to a divergence than a convergence in both method and subject matter. Through critical study of old and emerging methodologies, the essay proposes that the claims about world Christianity and its variants and features in Africa must be rethought in ways that give value to the actual faith and context of Africans. The essay proposes four possible approaches for developing an account of Christianity in Africa and the world, focusing on theological, missional, and biblical prescriptive perspectives, that complement the predominant descriptive, sociological, and historical accounts of Christian expansion in Africa in current scholarship.